Don't Go
by Iscah McKrae
Summary: Retelling of the infamous night at Truncheon, as seen from the inside of Jess' head. Lit. No longer a one-shot. And, that night at Truncheon is just the beginning.
1. Chapter 1

A/N:_This is a one shot (for now). When I'm finished with "Pay the Piper" (and maybe one other story that's in the pipes, all of which take place in the same story-verse), I intend to expand this into more than a one-shot, probably with a different title. This story is a "Thank you for reading. Please be patient with me," to all of my faithful "Pay the Piper" readers, as the next chapter is being stubborn, and my selective writer's block keeps diverting me to later chapters, which have to wait to be posted until I can get over a few story bumps._

_So, thank you so much for reading, for being patient with me. This is for you:_

_Don't Go_

It was all over. All the people had gone. It was almost eerie. Truncheon was usually just him, Matt, Chris…maybe one other person, reading, writing, browsing - but they were usually all gone by now, out somewhere, up on the roof, back up in the apartment, together, apart. But, this had been the big day, and even though all the lights were dim, and all the people gone, the energy was still there - the vibe; they could all feel it. They blew it off by bashing Matt's poet and the creepy raw material he hadn't cleared with them before performing earlier; 'till Matt, as usual, took it personally and went sulking off to "tell his poet." That was when he saw her. She was still there, sitting in the half-darkness, reading his book and waiting.

The eeriness took on an almost palpable density, settling in his stomach, thickening the air he breathed. Some part of him had known she hadn't gone. He had brushed it off - dismissed it. After all, to him, she was always there. She belonged there.

The guys were going to the bar they wanted to appropriate. He told Chris to go on without him. However things turned out, there was no way he was leaving anytime soon.

He pulled up a chair. They started to chat. Chatter was more like it - meaningful chatter about his book, Yale, her life now. Her body language was shy, nervous, but happy; happy to be there, happy to be with him. He hardly dared let himself believe any of this was happening. But here she was, and here he was; and it was perfect. There in this place that he had built, there in the residual glow of their apparent success, there in the dim golden light of Truncheon at night, a light like nowhere else, there together, after all these years, finally feeling right, whole, on the same page for once.

Still - he had to check. He had to make sure she'd resolved everything once and for all - no hang-ups, no footnotes to tear them apart again.

"You look happier than when I saw you last," he noted, with pleasure.

"I am." She nodded and smiled as only Rory could - _her_ smile - a little guarded, but still, _his_ Rory.

"So…" the important part, "you fixed everything?" Just to make sure.

"Yeah," her head bobbed, cheerfully, "everything's fixed." A wave of happiness flooded over Jess. He finally released the tension he'd been holding inside ever since he had forced himself to write her address on one of the invitations they were sending out and actually mail it. He leaned forward, looking into her clear blue eyes.

" Good. I'm glad you're here…" he was so close he could smell her…he had almost forgotten the smell of her hair.

"Yeah, me too." That was all he needed. His lips sought hers eagerly, but patiently, making this slow and perfect. So soft, so willing, so unalterably right…her love flowed through him so purely; an electric current, so familiar, yet so much stronger than it ever had, even on that sunshine day in the green so long ago when she had first kissed him. He felt himself slipping…slipping into something so deep, so sweet…a current…he was drowning and it was…home….he was drowning in home, so safe, so completely free, flying and falling and letting it roll over him like clouds crashing into the shoreline, with a golden sunset, and…

She pulled away. He crashed to the ground, so abruptly, like waking from a dream you could've sworn with every fiber of your being was real. He heard her apologize. Why was she apologizing? What could she possibly have to apologize for? For coming? For wanting to see what he'd made of himself, of his life? How was this not fair to him? How on earth had she been a jerk? It didn't make sense. None of it made sense.

"…and I couldn't even cheat on him the way he cheated on me." She seemed suddenly cracked down the middle. Not fixed. Broken.

"Who! Who cheated on you-that guy!" Ice water in the face. A punch in the gut…no, a kick in the groin. This couldn't be…but sickeningly, was. His mouth filled with bile. "You're still with him."

"Yeah." And there it was. The stupid paper doll that arranged DAR functions, and hid away from the world in a lace covered pillow stuffed world, with a shallow jerkish Porsche-driving…he cheated on her, but she was still with him! Where had his Rory gone?

"I thought everything was fixed." He'd checked. He'd double checked. He'd made sure. This wasn't supposed to happen this time.

"Everything but him." There it was - the hang-up, the footnote - it was always there, always ripping them apart before they even had a chance to get started. Fire flowed, searing through his veins.

"I _hate _this."

"You should." She kept apologizing. He kept countering. She kept explaining. "He was out of town." And so she put him in the middle of this? Made him a party to her lies? Or worse, to her galling truth…made him an object, a weapon - was that all he was to her?

"I don't deserve this, Rory."

"No, you don't. You don't deserve it. I just…" What justification could there be? How could she make this one better? "_I'm in love with him…_despite all the bad he's done, I can't help it, _I'm in love with him._"

So this was what it was like to be impaled. In a moment of time his heart screamed in its death throes, all of his blood flowed from his body, leaving him a mass of quivering white flesh.

"Love, huh?"

"Yeah…"

_Somebody, quick, tell me what love means, because I've obviously got it all wrong. Love means: You hurt me, so I hurt you back if I can. Never mind the people I hurt in the process. That's just friendly fire. At least they were killed by allies rather than enemies. That makes it all better._

"I guess I'll call Matthew's poet and have him explain love to me. Poets know all about it, right?" He hoped she couldn't hear how dead he was inside as he said those words. As if he needed someone to tell _him_ about love.

"Supposed to…" she said weakly. She was leaving…she said so…she said she was sorry she came.

"I'm not." How could that be? How could he not be sorry she'd come? Sorry she did this? Because… "It's what it is . . . _you_ . . . _me . . _. "

He heard himself give her permission to lie. She thanked him. Her hand was on the door knob. The next moment she would be gone. It wasn't real. He was numb. He was screaming. But it was only in his head.

_I've done everything for you. I've become everything you've ever dreamed I could be. I helped you to find yourself again. I wrote you a book. You love books. We love books…us…together. I wrote you a book so you would understand. You came back to me. You came back to me. You came back to tell me in your own awkward way that you read the book, that you understand now, and you love me, you finally love me. That's what you came to do. That's what I wouldn't let myself believe; and what I fooled myself into thinking. You let me kiss you. You kissed me. I felt your love. You can't deny it. You can't love him. You can't be with him. You can't. I love you more. More than anyone ever could. Why do you love the person who's breaking you apart? How can you go back to him? You wanted to use me. You were going to wipe your feet on my heart. Why do I still love you? Why is it that all I can care about is the fact that you're going to be miserable? You're going to keep letting him hurt you. Forget me. You're going to keep letting him hurt you. I know I hurt you. Back when I was stupid. Back when I had no idea what to do with your heart, I hurt you, I broke you, but it was an accident. I swear I didn't mean it. I swear I was trying to do the best thing for you the whole time…all of the time. I was just clumsy. Stupid and clumsy. But, I'm all grown up now. I love you with a man's love, a man's heart. I would do anything on earth. I would give my life if it would make you happy; really happy. Don't go be sad. Don't go._


	2. Chapter 2  The Man in Black

_Chapter 2. The Man in Black_

For a moment, the brass door knob was all that was holding her up. The Philadelphia street in front of her was blurred. The revulsion that her own actions…her own self-revelations had caused, was now bubbling up inside of her, all too literally. She was grateful for the hand railing on the side of the steps, for a moment later, she was hanging from it, doubled over, vomit splattering to the sidewalk below. Remorse and abhorrence combined, tears spilling over as her body tried to expel all of the poison she felt within, soon releasing nothing but air and quiet, anguished moans. She stood, shakily, trying to wipe the bitterness from her mouth. Her tears were subsiding, and she brushed them away, taking her third step descending the stairs.

It was then that her ears were filled without warning by the most horrific sound they had ever heard. She was uncertain whether it was about to burst her eardrums or her heart…and that was _before_ she realized what it was…before she _knew_. It was Jess screaming.

The impact knocked her to the ground, shuddering with broken sobs; tears forming cold rivulets down her cheeks and neck, the back of her hand pressed to her open mouth in a futile attempt to mitigate the ragged cry that escaped her. It didn't matter. He couldn't hear. His scream didn't seem to have an end.

_Oh, dear God, what have I done?_

_Do you hear that Fezzik? That is the sound of ultimate suffering. My heart made that sound when the six-fingered man killed my father. The Man in Black makes it now._

_-The Princess Bride_


	3. Chapter 3 She

_Chapter 3. She_

"Where _is_ Jess?" Matt asked, microbrew in hand. "You said he was going to catch up with us later." He looked at his wristwatch impatiently for half a second to make his point. "It's later."

"He's entertaining a lady," Chris said, dropping his voice an octave and wiggling his eyebrows.

"He _is not!_" Matt shot back, sneeringly. They both knew that Jess Mariano _never_ sought out the company of the opposite sex. He avoided it like the plague. Sure, he was courteous and polite to female customers when he didn't have any choice in the matter - and if a woman flirted with him, he responded in kind, though with a kind of virulence in his voice that they unfortunately usually took as an attempt at dark seduction, instead of the warning it actually was, and when they responded in kind, he would shut them down _hard. _When he was talking to them, or talking to his friends, the intended message was clear: _I hate women._ Chris and Matt never bought it for a second. Oh, he had a vendetta against them, there was no mistaking that. But, it was blatantly obvious that behind the hatred was a simple fact. He couldn't have the one woman on earth that was worth having - so he hated them all. So, all in all, Matt was absolutely certain that Jess Mariano was _not_ "entertaining" a… Matt's jaw dropped to the floor.

"You mean…?" he asked Chris, not daring to utter the unmentionable subject, even if Jess wasn't present. Chris looked him dead in the eye and nodded slowly. _She_ was there. The _she_ his book was _not_ dedicated to. The _she_ he _didn't _go to see on his distribution tour, before coming back and growling at everyone in sight for the next several weeks - holing himself up in his room, writing and barely eating and not shaving. The _she_ that _wasn't_ behind every word he ever wrote, and _hadn't_ prompted every move he made for the last who-knows-how-many years.

_She_ was there.

Matt gave a low whistle.


	4. Chapter 4 Zombie

_Chapter 4. Zombie_

As Chris turned the corner, he scanned the room surreptitiously to make sure he wasn't about to walk in on anything that might get him killed. What he saw was sitting on the floor, sheet white with black, hollow eyes. He looked like death warmed over. Chris walked over slowly and silently, and gripped his shoulder in silent commiseration. Jess was blinking quickly, and his eyes might have darted toward Chris' face for a microsecond in between pained stabs at the nothingness before him. His face began twitching, and somehow Chris caught a tiny fragment of the expression as gratitude, though the rest was a flinching struggle to control his spastic facial muscles and the tear ducts he'd spent a lifetime keeping dry.

Chris hoped to God Matt had the sensitivity to leave the guy alone in spite of the burning curiosity which had made it impossible to prevent him from returning from the bar that was _not_ Cedar Bar Redux far earlier than planned. Thank goodness whoever had called on the business telephone moments after they arrived was keeping him occupied for the moment.

But, no. He was an idiot, as usual. He walked in and held the phone out to Jess.

"For you…"


	5. Chapter 5 Black and Blue

_Chapter 5. Black and Blue_

Jess lay on his bed, the world swirling beneath him and around him…even in the darkness, the pitch black his black-out curtains subjected the tiny room to, even with his eyes closed, it still spun…crazy and out-of-control. All the questions still echoed in his mind - the questions Matt and Chris-Matt mostly-had peppered him with when he finally hung up the phone - questions about Rory, questions about Shane, questions about the daughter he'd never met…jumbled with all of his own questions. They blended into one unendurable cacophony in his head. It threatened to split apart. They gradually faded into a hollow, sickening realization that seemed to hum throughout every cell of his body. This was the end. This was it. Rory had impaled him, Shane had buried him, and the consequences of his own actions slammed on top as the tombstone. The crazy part was, he'd sealed his own fate so long ago, and he never even realized it.

Shakily, he arose from the bed, tossing the blankets aside. He'd collapsed there fully clothed…even his shoes. He left his room and fumbled his way across the common area and down the stairs without turning on any lights. Somewhere during the night it had started to rain. He could still hear the drizzle - see the grey green flickering light that whispered through the raindrops and bathed Truncheon in its spectral faint luminance. He shrugged on his coat, fishing the keys out of his pocket, and went out to the street, locking the door behind him. He walked through the misting rain to where he parked his car - rusty old beast, and clambered into the driver's seat, slamming the heavy door. Even the stupid car was haunted. It grumbled to life, stuttering in the damp cold. He drove by rote.

It was the wrong bridge. He couldn't dangle his legs over the side and look down at the black waters dancing with the moon, the smell of the old cedar planks taunting him with the memory of that first picnic. It wasn't grey and hard like Brooklyn, camouflaged into storm clouds and smog. It didn't kiss the sunset and the bay with the brilliance of the Golden Gate. The damnable thing had to be the same color as her eyes. Talk about insult to injury. And the stupid river couldn't even be a companionable black. Philly's neon lights made it a veritable rainbow. He kicked the concrete base of the sturdy blue railing. Too many lights when he needed the darkness. Couldn't dangle his legs, but he sat anyway. Shivering, he looked out over the unconsoling iridescent waters. She was gone. She was really gone.


	6. Chapter 6 Score One, Lane Kim

_Chapter 6. Score one, Lane Kim_

It has to be some sort of law of the universe. Wait till your love life is at an absolute rock-bottom low, and then, that, my friends, is the moment when you'll be expected to be a bridesmaid in your best friend's wedding…oh, wait, I mean weddings…plural. At least you won't have to worry about running to get a seat when there are more Koreans than seats, because, guess what? You'll be standing. That's right. You'll be standing there watching your best friend in her white dress with her husband…in his blue dress…and thinking about how you sat in the gazebo at 7-years-old and talked about this moment. This very moment. Lane had said she wanted to marry a rock-star…or Ronny Winston. Score one, Lane Kim! You, on the other hand, wanted to marry a-_OH NO! No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no…_ How did your 7-year-old self manage to stab you in the back like that? That's ridiculous! That's…

Right-so-back to the point. The universe sucks! The man you said you were in love with…despite all the bad he's done… He's in Costa Rica. Or Nicaragua. Or Panama. With girls in coconut bras! Yeah! Oh, and he's probably going to get himself killed, because, god knows, he's the one who jumped with the raft, and is no doubt over the weight limit, because his stupid friends had to jump with champagne and DVD players and bongs and cigars, and god knows whether that was a 2 or an 8 or a 3, and he _wouldn't listen!_

Whereas, the man you aren't in love with-the one the 7-year-old just shoved in your face… Well, you aren't in love with him, are you? So why does it matter? Just because he'll never speak to you again doesn't mean you should be heartbroken. A person doesn't get their heart broken over someone they aren't in love with…someone they haven't been in love with for years…someone who broke their heart into so many pieces so long ago that they can't even…

Okay, so you're allowed to be sad that you lost a good friend. You hurt a good friend. Let's be honest while we're at it-you killed a good friend. But that's no reason you should be thinking about him while your best friend is marrying her soul mate. Is Zach her soul mate? I hope he is, but somehow I can't think of him in those terms. But at least they share the same passions. The same goals. Because that's what you should share with the man you're going to marry, right?

Somebody make that 7-year-old shut up.


	7. Chapter 7 It's a Process

_Chapter 7. It's a Process_

Above _Truncheon _Books, in the room that had been his for such a short time, really, Jess stood in the middle of chaos. He'd found an apartment, not too much bigger than this room, actually, where he could set up housekeeping with his daughter. Now _there _was a frightening thought! So, he was doing his best to pack. It was slow-going, considering the fact that he couldn't seem to pack more than a few items before getting…_stuck…_again. The room was cluttered with a jumbled mess, and his head wasn't much better. The best he could figure, he was _processing_. If he was honest, he'd admit that if it wasn't for the fact that he, of necessity, was pulling himself up by his bootstraps, so to speak - he had a child to take responsibility for - he probably would have buried himself in writing and booze, or maybe just booze, backsliding in the biggest way into the life he wanted no part of. He almost certainly would've started in with the cigarettes again. Heaven knows, he needed them! But, the thought of a smoke-filled apartment with a three-year-old child rankled everything in him and sent echoes-of-Liz shivers down his spine, so that was out. So, he was processing. Whatever that meant.

He didn't have that much stuff…if you excluded books from the definition of stuff…and music. It wasn't like it could all fit in an oversized duffel bag anymore, but there wasn't a whole lot of it. How was it that there was still so much that he couldn't extricate from painful memories? He tossed three or four things from the closet into the box he was currently filling, hardly looking at them, so they couldn't do damage. When he reached down and his hand grasped something small and soft and cotton-stuffed, though, he didn't have to look down. The heavy breath dragged itself from his chest.

They walked home past the glittering carnival lights in the cool night air.

"Here," she said, holding out the white, sad-looking bear in front of his nose. He raised an eyebrow. "Well, if you'd won it, you weren't really going to give it to Clara, were you?"

"Um…_no_." His patronizing smile spoke clearly his thoughts of the youngest member of the Forrester family.

"So, since _I_ won it, it's for you," she declared happily, expression changing suddenly to a frown as she whisked it back a split second before it was in his hand. "Although, on second thought, I'm not sure I should give it to you. You'll have to promise not to use it to smother little girls!" her eyes narrowed in teasing suspicion. He snatched it from her with a scowl.

"Well, I know you won't believe me, but murdering children isn't exactly on my bucket list," he drawled, scowl turning smirkish.

"_You_ have a _bucket list?_" she mocked, clearly delighted. He leveled a glare at her. "Right, right," she giggled, "_way_ too cool for a bucket list! …or a teddy bear." She said the last part in baby-talk, and attempted to take the bear back.

"Enough with the indian-giving!" he protested, holding it out of her reach. "It's _my_ bear now!" Rory's eyes widened. He never would have admitted to her that the possessive reflex sprang from the time a few years back when he'd realized that the few childhood toys he'd possessed had wound up in the dumpster. It was embarrassing how much that hurt. As if he needed _more_ proof that his mother couldn't care less. _Hates me. _Sure, she hadn't been herself when she'd done it, but…still.

"And only-child syndrome rears its ugly head…" Rory joked, by way of commentary.

Jess rolled his eyes. "Says Rory Gilmore," he scoffed. _Yeah, _he_ had only-child syndrome!_

"_Hey!_" She was indignant. "I resent that!"

"You started it," he accused. She folded her arms across her chest.

"I was unaware that we were having an argument," she said tersely. "I thought this was nearing the end of a somewhat pleasant date."

"Don't you mean double-date?" he grumbled. "After all, it was more _me and Clara_, and _you and Dean._" Her mouth tightened into a sour look.

"You told me that you understood. You told me you weren't mad, and that you believed me."

"I do."

"Well, that's not what it sounds like to me! It sounds like you're _really_ mad."

"Well, I'm not," he insisted.

"You can be a real jerk sometimes, you know that?" she pouted.

He knew that. He lowered his head and stopped walking. "You can have it back…doesn't matter," he said softly, not meeting her eyes…not holding out the bear…just wishing he knew how to apologize with his mouth. He hadn't meant to ruin the evening…again.

"No." She was looking at him, wanting to look him in the eye, but he still didn't look up. "I was just teasing. I gave it to you."

"I'm not mad," he reiterated softly. "I'm a jerk, but I'm not mad."

"And, you really do believe me?" he asked, her quiet voice simultaneously uneasy and hopeful. He nodded.

"END FLASHBACK," Jess told himself forcefully. He couldn't bear remembering the making up, the sweetness, how what followed was ironically one of those rare moments when all of the planets aligned and the two of them shared a world all their own, where everything made sense and everybody was happy, where the stars and the glittering snow and the twinkling lights seemed magical, and their dazzling reflection in her eyes made him lose his breath…and the ability to think unhazy thoughts, where their kisses sent shivers and warmth through him at the same time, and the soft gasps from her smiling lips clouded thickly in the cold air. Those times were forbidden from his memory now. _For all the good it did._ She was gone…really, truly, 100% gone, and he had to make himself believe it. Somehow.

He looked at the dilapidated bear and deliberately changed his train of thought. _Midget Forrester…how old would she be now? _He didn't bother with the mental math because he realized he didn't know how old she had been then. _Prob'ly graduatingish. And the Jolly Green Giant - wonder what he's up to? That's right, he got hitched. _Kirk's semi-accidental insults as he rang up all of the ladies' items Dean was buying still couldn't help but prompt a not-so-smothered smirk. It faded a moment later. _So, what was he doing in Rory's dorm that night? AND, we're right back to the Town Princess! In nothing like record time, but we're supposed to be improving here!_

Back to the bear. Back to Clara's yammering. He started to wonder how old she had been then…and how long it would be until he had one just like her. _Wow, I'm gonna do just great!_ He shook his head angrily at the thought, irritated still further by the realization that a very large part of him _still_ wanted to ram the stuffed animal down her little jabbering throat.

_What business have I got being somebody's father? …a little girl's father…_

"_Look at me, Jess. I'm not a father. I was never a father. I left you because I wasn't a father. I mean it, the minute the cigar was finished, I was like, 'What do you think you're doing? You can't take care of yourself. How are you gonna take care of someone else?'"_

"_Great! Backpedaling already! I should've expected it."_

"Shut up!" he said aloud to the Jimmy and Shane voices in his head. He wasn't taking off! He wasn't backpedaling! Didn't he deserve just a little time to absorb this? After all, most guys at least got nine months. Jimmy had nine months! Was it so unreasonable to be a _little_ overwhelmed?

He sat down heavily on the bed, the once-white bear still in his hands. Wouldn't it be about right for a three-year-old girl? That thought came with a pang in his chest. No. How many years had he been dragging that thing around? It was gray and dingy, and probably full of all sorts of germs. Couldn't let a little girl put that in her mouth. Three-year-olds still put things in their mouths, right? He tried not to let his conscious mind chide him for his excuses…tell him that it could be washed…tell him that a three-year-old wouldn't mind that it wasn't perfect. He couldn't let those worlds collide. He couldn't let this dingy, old, piece of trash bear belong to anybody else. It belonged to…

He threw it violently into the box and strode purposely out of the room, slamming the door. Now was not the time to pack. He couldn't process any more right now.


End file.
